


foul nasal expulsions, and other Arthurian concerns

by arthur_pendragon, brokenfannibal_art (broken_fannibal)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Audio Content, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Banter, Besotted Fools, Canon Era, Collaboration, Cuddling & Snuggling, Embedded Audio, Fluff and Humor, Incoherent Merlin, Love Confessions, M/M, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Collaboration, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes, Protective Arthur, Sick Merlin (Merlin), silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-07-09 07:51:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19884172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_pendragon/pseuds/arthur_pendragon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/broken_fannibal/pseuds/brokenfannibal_art
Summary: Merlin has a terrible, miserable cold and he’s unable to think coherently or maintain a brain-mouth filter. Couple that with his inconvenient feelings for Arthur…





	foul nasal expulsions, and other Arthurian concerns

**Author's Note:**

> **From the writer:** Thank you to the mods for their hard work, and to broken_fannibal for their unending patience with the flaky mess that I've been. I really hope you enjoy this collaboration of ours.  
>  **From the podficcer:** This was a lot of fun, so thank you to the mods for doing this challenge!!  
> And thank you to arthur_pendragon for writing this wonderful fic!

[download mp3 here](http://www.mediafire.com/file/xuaqwr9s0bhb99k/foul_nasal_expulsions%252C_and_other_Arthurian_concerns_by_arthur-pendragon.mp3/file)

* * *

Merlin inhales deeply, and sneezes in the very next instant. Unfortunately, he does so all over the most annoying prat in the five great kingdoms of Albion.

“Good _God_ , you’re disgusting,” grumbles Arthur, sitting next to him. The forest ground is damp — there’d been a summer shower earlier, ‘when it rains it pours’ in action — and the seat of Merlin’s trousers is uncomfortably… uncomfortable. So must be the case for Arthur, but of course it’s only Merlin that he’d be on about. “How have you spent more than two years around Gaius without learning _any_ thing about contagion?”

“Oh, bugger off,” Merlin mutters. Arthur is very warm, and Merlin is so cold, even though it’s summer and sweltering. And he has a cracker of a headache, and a blocked nose, and a throat both scratched raw and on fire so that’s just fantastic, and hands that tremble instead of doing anything useful, like holding a flint or a twig or… or Arthur’s arm. And on top of all of this, he’s wearing soaked clothes as he didn’t think to bring any others for what had been supposed to be an overnight hunting trip. And on top of all of _that_ , the only external source of heat he and Arthur have is a fire that’s… well, it’s trying its best. Merlin wouldn’t normally pity inanimate objects (is fire an object? He’s too woozy to tell) but he empathises with them today, since Arthur’s more or less treating him like one.

“I wouldn’t be to blame if I did bugger off and leave you out here for bandits and monsters,” Arthur retorts, but he lets Merlin lean on him like so much dead weight.

Merlin sneezes again. No snot comes out, thankfully, but his throat isn’t thanking him right now. Poor throat. Poor Merlin. He makes a sad face at the thought, to round out the pity party.

Arthur hooks his pinky over Merlin’s. Their hands are resting on his thigh. Merlin hadn’t noticed that his hand was on Arthur’s _thigh_. He shudders, and not just from the chill down every part of him that isn’t joined up to Arthur’s.

“Just this night, all right?” Arthur mutters, voice low and comforting — attempting to be comforting, because even when he’s concerned, Merlin knows, he has to sound supercilious and angry. Yes, especially angry about the audacity of Merlin to fall sick and say he’s perfectly fine when Arthur orders him along on these kill-animals-and-make-a-day-of-it trips.

He’s… making no sense. Very nearly so. If he were saying any of this out loud, Arthur would have him confined to a madhouse. Or he’d have Gaius do it, since if _he_ did it, everyone would just think he and Merlin were having yet another domestic and Arthur was abusing his princely powers to win the argument. They’re not married! A servant and a prince, married, would you believe! What poppycock. But everyone behaves as if they were. They’re all idiots, and ought to know what is so often said about assuming; something about asses and making and you and me. Merlin has a deathly cold, so it’s all right if he doesn’t remember just yet. All he wants is to go home and cuddle up to Arthur, if Arthur’ll let him. Arthur might not let him. Arthur doesn’t know that Merlin wants to cuddle up to him. Arthur wants to cuddle up to Vivian, and Gwen, and Sophia.

“I s’pose we’ll be on our way back tomorrow?” Merlin says, through chattering teeth, heart sinking at the thought of Arthur cuddling up to Vivian and Gwen and Sophia. Arthur’s eyes gleam in the (measly) firelight, a lightning flash of a glance at him, and Merlin doesn’t _want_ to think that that was genuine concern, but what else can he believe when Arthur’s pinky leaves his, only for his entire arm to wrap around Merlin’s shoulders and pull him in so, so close that they’re not two people now but one unit, a carnival sight to see. He doesn’t particularly mind. Arthur is so warm. And this way, he can convince himself that as long as Arthur wants Merlin practically growing out of his side like this, Arthur is all his.

“Just this night, and then we’ll have you back to Gaius.”

“I’m sorry,” Merlin tries to say, croaking now. He doesn’t know exactly how he fell ill in the first place — one of Gaius’s patients, most likely, or perhaps his walk through the lower town last week hadn’t exactly been fruitless at all.

Arthur shushes him.

 _Shushes_ him. Goes “shhh”, and jostles him a bit, as if Merlin is a baby that needs to be quieted. Merlin spares himself a moment from his self-pity to feel indignation but also pure, helpless affection. Wincing as he breathes, he slowly peels himself away from Arthur, and raises a hand to make an obscene gesture at him. Arthur snorts.

“Get back here, idiot,” he says, and holds out his arm again.

He must not care, then, about catching Merlin’s ailment. Merlin feels a tiny spark of warmth wink into being inside him, somewhere between his heart and his midriff. He snuggles back up to his arrogant prince, and falls asleep before he knows it.

* * *

He is churlishly awoken by a kick to his side.

“Up,” Arthur barks, standing over him, dappled by the sunlight leaking through the canopy. There is a dull red flush on his face. Merlin hopes it’s not because he’s caught whatever Merlin has. It would serve him right, though. Expecting Merlin to work miracles like _getting up_ in his state. What happened to the careful, considerate man from last night?

“Shhh,” Merlin mutters, because Arthur ought to be treated like a baby in need of quieting sometimes, too. He wonders how the prince’ll respond. He’s got it down to a science, now, elucidating the truth from Arthur’s absurdities — if Arthur snarks at him he’s completely normal, if he snaps he’s fretting, if he’s quiet he’s furious, and if he’s talking _pleasantly_ with Merlin, then… then Merlin might as well wrap up and settle in for the apocalypse, since it’s either that, or Arthur’s under an enchantment. The latter of the two, despite Merlin’s well-intentioned efforts, is the case almost every other week, as Arthur’s got a bull’s-eye painted on his back. Currently, however, it seems Arthur is worried, and that shouldn’t be making Merlin happy, of all things, but it is. So very tremendously stupidly happy.

“Still expelling your foul nasal… expulsions everywhere?” Arthur crouches and pulls Merlin’s face towards him, peering into his mouth, pushing the tip of his nose up with a thumb, slapping a hand over his eyes. Why in God’s name would he —

“We peasants call it ‘snot’. You should deign to use our words sometimes, it’ll be fun,” Merlin says, jerking weakly away and closing his eyes. Not three minutes awake and his head is already pounding. His throat, parched, hurts an awful lot, too. Is this what death feels like? It must be. Merlin is dying. _Dying_. And his clothes are no closer to being dry or warm. This is hell.

“Merlin,” says Arthur, in a strange sort of voice. _Concern_. The back of his hand is now plastered across Merlin’s forehead. How did he not notice? “You’re burning up.”

“Oh, really?” Good to know Merlin’s sarcasm still works in life-and-death situations.

“Tell me what Gaius would do,” Arthur snaps, and oh, he’s worried again. Merlin’s heart skips a beat.

“If he couldn’t find feverfew anywhere nearby, he’d hasten to get us back to Camelot,” Merlin says, dizzy and attempting to get to his feet. He daren’t use his magic in front of Arthur, not even to ease the congestion in his nose or heal what seems to be a dragon breathing fire in the vicinity of his throat. “Let’s go.”

Arthur rises — drawing Merlin up with him. And in a jiffy, Merlin’s been sat on his favourite horse from the royal stables and Arthur’s leading them through the trees on foot, hand wrapped securely around the reins of both their steeds.

“I’m sorry,” Merlin mumbles, when it’s been about a thousand years since they began their trip home. The woods have started to thin out, enough for two horses to trot side-by-side. Arthur deftly climbs onto his horse, but doesn’t let go of Merlin’s.

“For lying to me?” he says, without looking at Merlin, who is now sad. So sad. Making a sad face and everything. He should hug Arthur, except he’d probably fall off Anwen and break his neck.

“About what?”

“This illness of yours! If you’d only told me before we set out —”

“— you would’ve said ‘get over yourself, _Mer_ lin’, and made me come anyway.”

Arthur falls quiet. Merlin feels just a tad guilty when he sees Arthur’s shoulders go down, back, and rigid, as if he’s in front of Uther being admonished.

“I thought I’d have the chance to cuddle up to you,” he blurts out, and Arthur turns his head to gape at him. “If we were in the forest. And you needed a warm body. I thought I’d get to be close to you. That’s why I came along. I didn’t expect the rain.” All these broken, jerky sentences aren’t helping make Merlin’s case, probably, but now that the cat’s out of the bag… “You only ever want to cuddle up to Lady Vivian. Or Gwen. Or Sophia Tír-Mòr. That’s unfair to me, ’cause I want to cuddle up” — stop saying _cuddle up_ , Merlin — “to you more than they do. I like you. I like you so much. You’re so lovely. Oh, God, I’m rambling. Oh, heavens, shut me up. You’re an arse but I like you all the same and I want to marry you. Shut me up!”

“No,” Arthur says, incredulous. “In no way, shape, or form are you allowed to stop talking. Keep going, _immediately_.”

“But my throat and my head and my nose and my body,” Merlin whines, sagging in the saddle, using Anwen’s neck as support for his forehead. “I’m dying here, Arthur. Perishing. Inches from death’s door. You’ll have to make arrangements for a funeral by the time we get back.”

He hears Arthur retort, “Grasp your reins firmly,” and with one sharp command from their prince, Anwen and Llamrei are thundering through the trees, bursting out of the forest. Merlin is decidedly not a fan of this new development, and he thinks he might inadvertently leave a revolting trail of expulsions, oral this time, to mark their path.

“No sicking up, control yourself,” shouts Arthur over the wind, as if he read Merlin’s mind. His golden hair is whipping here and there, all over the place. Merlin smiles to himself, knowing Arthur’ll look a fright when they stop galloping. Still handsome.

He rather feels like defying Arthur’s orders, though.

He defies them.

It’s properly nasty but Arthur doesn’t look revolted at all, only frantic and annoyed — somehow both at once.

This must be true love.

* * *

Gaius is equal parts tetchy and fussy over Merlin, once Merlin collapses, sweaty and shuddering but in dry clothes, thank goodness, into a patient’s cot. The reprimands are nothing Merlin hasn’t heard before, so he ignores them (Gaius goes on unerringly for about fifty years each time he’s in the mood to tell Merlin off) and focuses on the hand wrapped around his.

Oh. There’s a hand wrapped around his.

He follows it up to see that it belongs to Arthur.

Arthur, who’s sporting an ominous expression that strikes fear into Merlin’s heart.

“Thank you for your attention, _Mer_ lin,” Arthur breathes, low so as to not be heard over Gaius’s inexorable rebukes. The man has his back turned to them and yet he’s carrying on about how this could’ve turned into lung fever. Merlin loves him. And Arthur, who’s still speaking. Whoops. “Thank you _again_ for your renewed attention. Here is what I would like you to do.

“I would like you to close your eyes and go to sleep, recover from this to-be-lung-fever, and when you are once more hale and hearty, I am going to require you to reiterate your love confession to me.”

“Wasn’t a love confession,” Merlin lies. “I called you an arse. Go away, I’m dying.” He coughs a little to see if that scares Arthur off of making any more menacing pronouncements whilst Merlin’s so close to giving up the ghost.

“Nice try. Once you do so, we will have a thorough talk about why it took you nearly _dying_ — which you’re not, by the way — to bare your heart to me.”

“I can’t be held responsible for what I say in my delirium,” Merlin croaks, and turns over, clutching Arthur’s hand in his so that Arthur now has to stretch forward uncomfortably.

“I thought we’d be able to cuddle once you owned up to your feelings, but very well,” Arthur says, and he’s clearly teasing but Merlin rolls over again.

“No,” he gasps anxiously. “All the cuddles.”

“Done deal. Recover soon, Merlin. Give me my fingers back.”

“Bye,” Merlin whines, and lets Arthur subject him to a thorough caress of his hair. “I hate to see you go,” he says piteously, “but love to watch you leave.”

Arthur’s shoulders start trembling before he closes the door — without a backward glance, how mean of him. Merlin wonders if he’s coming down with a cold, too.

He reluctantly shifts his gaze away from the door to meet Gaius’s.

“I didn’t catch a single thing you said. What were you telling me?” he asks, sincere and wide-eyed, only for Gaius to sigh and throw a balled-up blanket at him.


End file.
